“Looking at the look in her eyes,” Petrino said of confessing to his wife, “how could I possibly do something like this, to hurt her. The anger. The feeling of, ‘How could you possibly do this to me?’”

He also had to tell his four children.

He said he intended to tell athletic director Jeff Long and his wife before the story became public, but never got a chance to.

“I really wanted to do it in the right order and in person, but the timeline just got away,” he told ESPN.

He said he has been asked by Cal and by the Tennessee Titans to visit. He said his first priority is saving his marriage, but hopes to get back into coaching, and that he’ll be better at it.

“I’ve made mistakes and I’m going to be a better person for it,” he said. “I’m going to keep my life in better balance. And I really feel I’ll be a better coach because this happened, because now I know that I’m going to coach the person as much as much as the player and help the person who has made mistakes, help him understand that he is not going to be defined by the mistakes he has made but how he reacts to it and overcomes it.”